The DVD includes three new films - edited from archive film material, with a soundtrack made from out-of-copyright records - along with the original material and source files. The material is released under a Creative Commons license, enabling anyone to use and re-use Screen Tests for future creative exchange.

Screen Tests 1/4 Screen Tests
The film unfolds as a series of Andy Warhol-like screen tests, slowly revealing the location and the occupation of those before the camera - students and models from the Manchester School of Art.

Screen Tests 3/4 Broadcast Times: The Birth of Westward
As the exhibition train leaves the platform, we are taken on a documentary journey of “a happy hunting ground for tycoons” the birth of commercial television broadcasting.

Screen Tests 4/4
The Northern Region Film and Television Archive, based in Newcastle did not respond to several attempts at contact, eventually we spoke over the telephone and they declined any involvement.

Open Music Archive presents an Evening of Free Music and Films

British Art Show 6, Manchester (28th Jan -2nd April 2006)

We were invited by artists Neil Cummings & Marysia Lewandowska to collaborate on Screen Tests for the British Art Show 6 in Manchester. Screen Tests is a film composed entirely of material found and released from the North West Film Archive. The ten minute film is accompanied by a sound track made from out-of-copyright recordings. These source recordings are available in the Open Music Archive to download:

OMA @ Open Congress, Tate Britain

Open Music Archive presented at Open Congress (Tate Britain 7th-8th October 2005)

Open Congress was Inspired by Free Software: software that challenges conventional practices of authorship, ownership and distribution. The innovative congress explored these implications for art, visual culture and cultural production in general.

For Open Congress, Open Music Archive presented a DJ set of music made entirely of samples of out-of-copyright music recordings, mainly sourced from 1920s 78rpm records. An accompanying slideshow uncovered the process of tracking this material.